Gryger v. Burke’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

644 federal appellate · 36 district · 517 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 1,594 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Nor do we think the fact that one of the convictions that entered into the calculations by which petitioner became a fourth offender occurred before the Act was passed, makes the Act invalidly retroactive or subjects the petitioner to double jeopardy. The sentence as a fourth offender or habitual criminal is not to be viewed as either a new jeopardy or additional penalty for the earlier crimes. It is a stiffened penalty for the latest crime, which is considered to be an aggravated offense because a repetitive one.”

   62 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Monge v. California · Lawrence v. Jones

2. “We cannot treat a mere error of state law, if one occurred, as a denial of due process; otherwise, every erroneous decision by a state court on state law would come here as a federal constitutional question.”

   14 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Jones v. Thieret · Clark v. Link

3. ““Beginning in 1927, at the age of seventeen, this petitioner [relator] has been arrested eight times for crimes of violence, followed in each instance by plea of guilty or by conviction. Respondent states, and petitioner does not deny, that of the last 20 years of his life, over 13 years have been spent in jail. A schedule of his pleas or convictions and pertinent data is appended, post, p. 1687, those in italics being the four on the basis of which an information was filed charging him to be a fourth offender. Brought into court on that limited charge, he acknowledged his identity as the convict in each of the previous cases and he was given a life sentence pursuant to the Act. He was without counsel and it is said that he was neither advised of his right to obtain counsel nor was counsel offered to him. “It rather overstrains our credulity to believe that one who had been a defendant eight times and for whom counsel had twice waged defenses, albeit unsuccessful ones, did not know of his right to engage counsel. No request to do so appears. The only question of fact before the court on the fourth offender charge was whether he was the same person who was convicted in the four cases. This he then admitted and does not now deny. The only other question was sentence, and it does not appear that any information helpful to petitioner was unknown to the court. “It is said that the sentencing judge prejudiced the defendant by a mistake in construing the Pennsylvania Habitual Crimin”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 173 Pa. Super. 458 - Commonwealth Ex Rel. Gryger v. Burke